Gressinger & Main: Downtown Florence, AZ – My Gressinger family has a long association with this beautiful and fascinating region. My father’s father came here from Kansas to farm alfalfa around 1913. But as the water table declined, he gave up farming in 1918, moved into the city and went to work for the Southern Pacific Railroad.

There he built a modest home a few blocks from the University of Arizona so his two daughters, my aunts, could walk to class. Their classrooms, the original building completed in 1891 known as Old Main, still stands at the entrance to the University.

A year later, on Christmas day 1919, my father was born at St. Mary’s Hospital in Tucson. We have an old photo of my father’s first home on 9th Street when it was just completed and he was just an infant, and another, taken 90 years later, of my father standing on that same front porch.

Prior to retiring here in Tucson, I published newspapers in many parts of the United States, including Texas, Ohio, New York, and California. Over 35 years we met a lot of wonderful people. Many now visit us for a week or two in the fall, winter, or spring. It is not unusual for them to ask for our recommendations on where to go, what to see, and where to eat.

Over the years we became rather expert tour guides. It is our pleasure to share our local knowledge with you so that your visit to Tucson and Baja Arizona will be all it should be.